The Haunted Library
by finalfantasyvii.info
Summary: A story made by a member of forums.finalfantasyvii.info - a fictional story with a feel of Harry Potter - enjoy.


Hello reader. My name's James. You are going to be reading my extraordinary story. My story starts off when I was only twelve, and I'm now seventy-odd, and yet, I can remember it as if it was yesterday. So here goes. When I was twelve, I kind of remember myself walking up the path to the old, creepy, tumbled down library. A long time ago, way past the memories of the oldest people living in Old Town, the library had been a house, but 100 years ago, there had been a horrible, ghastly murder and it's been said that a ghost still roams the library wailing the name of its murderer. Or so the old legends. They also say that a wizard and a spirit had a duel and the spirit turned into a woman ghost. Then from what I'd heard, the wizard came back and turned the spirit into a proper woman, whose name I've forgotten. So you can imagine the look of terror on my face when my mum said for me to go to the library on my own to get her a stupid, boring gardening book.

"But mum, there's a grotesque, demented, and tormented ghost haunting the library, and you know that from all the legends!"

"Well if you're a little baby, then you can take your friend with you," my mum sarcastically said, trying to mimic my voice, but miserably failed.

At the sound of these words, I shot out of the house like a bullet out of a gun to my friend's house just down the road from me.

My friend was called Leo, and was the same age as I was, and he had only one hobby. That was eating. He ate what ever he could lay his grubby, piggy, little hands on, whether it was burgers, ice cream, or chips. You name it, he ate it. Sometimes all three at once. But anyway, after I met up with him, we ran like lightning to the library.

A couple of minutes later, I had found the book I wanted. The book was called: 'Horrible Histories, Deaths in the Library'.

"Have you found the book yet that you wanted?" Leo asked, voice muffled by the massive burger bun in his mouth. He had loads of tomato ketchup running down his face like the Angel Falls. Sometimes, he's so sick, you can be physically sick just by looking at him.

"Yes I've found it. It's called..."

"Hey don?t close the door on us!" Leo bellowed and ran as fast as his fat, piggy, little legs could carry him. But it was too late; the great, old oak door closed in his face and he banged into it, and rolled around the floor because he was a fat ball of fat.

"I don't believe it; we're locked in the haunted l-library with the b-b-blood sucking, horrible semi-transparent g-g-ghost who could attack us at a-a-any minute!" he spluttered in a shaky voice. He was scared, but I somehow managed to stay calm.

"Hey, hey, hey, calm down, we're going to try and find an exit, and we'll be out in no time. I promise you that o.k.," I said encouragingly to him. That calmed him down, and he even smiled, despite the current situation we were in. I thought this was slightly odd, but I just ignored it. "But before we can do that, we have to try and get rid of the ghost that has killed people, just by cursing all the books, or so all the legends say anyway."

"You must be kidding!"

"Well, it's not as is we have much of a choice is it. So are you with me or aren't you?"

"O.K, let's do it."

"That's the spirit. Now to start off with, you start over in the far corner and I'll start here. Try to press every panel you can see to see if a secret door will open or something."

We were near the end of the library. We had to push aside big, thick, disgusting cobwebs, which smelled of long forgotten mothballs, to look for an exit out of the library. After roughly 10-15 minutes, Leo sat against the wall, apparently exhausted by the amount of ?exercise? we did. Then suddenly the wall opened when he lent on a panel.

"The wall opened up when I lent on it!" he shouted in a very sudden, loud voice.

"Well, come on then, let?s see what's at the end of the tunnel," I replied in an encouraging voice.

The tunnel was very dark, very spooky and very mysterious. We couldn't see our hands in front of our faces because it was so dark. It was so dark that we could almost taste it. Leo was now back to trembling from head to foot like a jelly at a little kid's birthday. A few minutes later, Leo said he thought he could hear something just ahead.

"Hey, can you hear anything up ahead that sounds like a plant that moves in the wind?" he asked.

"Yes, I can hear something. Let's investigate it!" I replied in a confident voice.

"I don't want to, I just want to go back to where I know we'll be safe from any harm," Leo suddenly whimpered like a bratty, scared kid.

"So you're a chicken then? Cluck, cluck, cluck!"

"Stop it, already. I'll go, I'll go."

"That?'s good, because you've got no choice in the matter."

So we marched onwards, after this little argument, until we came to a chamber filled with tropical plants of all shapes and sizes. Some were tall and thin, whilst others were short and fat. The one thing they all had in common, however, was they all had some sort of mouth, which was causing the moving in the wind sound, and they also looked remarkably human in appearance. The whole area smelt like a cheap compost heap that hadn't been cleaned in two to three years, and the place was lit up by a dim light coming from the ceiling skylight, casting a soft glow over everything in the area.

"They look furious with us for some reason," I said in an almost calm voice, but on the inside, I was almost as scared as Leo was as this minute. But I was hardly going to admit that after just making fun of him for the same reason.

"Do-do you think they'll at-t-tack if we try to get a-a-across?" stuttered Leo in a low whisper.

"Well, lets see if they do attack us! I don't care if they do or not!" I bellowed in a loud, stern voice to try and show some authority.

So I ran quickly to one of the closer plants, and almost immediately the plant attacked me with one of its long, thin, straggly branches, nearly knocking me unconscious.

"Hey, just then, before I got hit, I thought I heard it say that you have to answer a riddle of some sort, to get pass them." I told Leo. Well, at this point, I really thought I was going mental because of the bump on my head caused by the branch hitting me. After all, how many talking trees do you hear and see in normal life.

"How are we to get past you?" demanded Leo in his obvious O.T.T. voice, to show that he thought he was the big boss around here. At this point, I also thought my best friend was becoming a lunatic as well as me, and he wasn't even hit with a branch. And stupid. I just said how they would let us pass. Seriously.

"You have to answer a riddle of great difficultly. If you guess correctly, then you can pass. But answer incorrectly, then you'll die a horrible death," the plant suddenly said in a slippery tone:

"First think of the person who lives in disguise,

Who deals in secrets and tells naught but lies.

Next, tell me what the last thing to mend is always,

The middle of middle and end of the end?

And finally give me the sound often heard

During the search for a hard-to-find word.

Now string them together, and answer me this,

Which creature would you be unwilling to kiss?"

Both Leo and I were thinking hard about the riddle, for about 30 seconds, when suddenly Leo jumped up and shouted in an excited voice "I've cracked it, the answers a spider." He always seems to get riddles quickly, despite the difficulty of some of them.

"Yes, that is the correct answer; you may now go on into the next chamber. But let me give you a bit of advice,"

the plant said softly and evilly "You'll need a very sharp eye to help you," then he laughed softly, but there was nothing to amuse him in the dark dismal chamber.

"Thank you for helping us," we said together happily. I didn't realize it at the time, but this advice was to help me recognize friend from foe. In time.

Just as we were about to set out, Leo suddenly said, "James, can I speak to this plant very quickly?"

"Why the hell would you want to do such as stupid thing?!"

"To make it apologize for hitting you earlier."

"It doesn't matter. I'm fine now anyway."

"No really, I insist. So, if you go on ahead, I'll catch up with you."

"Well, O.K, if you're absolutely sure. I'll meet you behind that curve down the tunnel." So I went on ahead, then I waited for him once I got to a fork in the tunnel. At this point in time, I thought it was strange that he wanted to talk to a plant that he was absolutely petrified of. A few minutes later, I met up with Leo and we began to walk down endless tunnels.

For some hours, Leo and I had been walking along the new passage until suddenly someone jumped out of the shadows, scaring the living shit out of us.

"ERYN! What are you doing down here all alone?" shouted Leo in shock. Eryn had been his girlfriend when he was younger, but she strangely disappeared without a word to anyone, not even Leo, about 8months ago.

"Same reason you're down here. To get rid of the ghost that's been haunting this library for years. That's why I disappeared all that time ago, and that's why I didn't tell anyone where I was going or what I was going to do."

"Yeah, well, that kind of backfired, didn't it," I sarcastically replied. But she wasn't listening to me.

"You could have told me,? Leo replied angrily, "after all, I was and am your boyfriend, am I not!"

"You may be, but I knew you would try and stop me."

"Come on; let's just get this over and done with." I said in a rage. Don't you just hate it when people talk about things you can just say as easily at home?

So we carried on for a while, until we came to a sky-high, never-ending chamber filled to the top with all kinds of exotic birds such as parrots, toucans and tacos. In fact the entire world's species of birds seemed to be in this one room. But they all had one thing in common; they all had keys attached to one of their legs.

"Right, we've got two problems. A) We can't get to them because we can't fly up to grab them, obviously, and B) there are so many that we don't know which key opens the door!" Eryn shouted loudly over the noise of squawking and flapping of wings.

"What! I can't hear you over all these bloody birds!" I shouted in her ear. So she repeated it again. Whilst this was happening, Leo suddenly spotted a hunting rifle and some ammo in the dark corner of the room, and then he knew what we had to do.

"Who here has got a sharp eye and is fantastic at shooting?"

"I'm excellent at killing stuff!" shouted Eryn.

"Well, look for a key that fits the key hole," Leo whispered loudly in her ear. Obvious when you think of it, isn't it.

So Eryn took a whole minute just to find the key, then I can't blame her with the amount of birds there were, but once she did manage to find it, she took a quick aim and fired.

"Well done Eryn, you're a bloody good gunner. You've killed the bird right in the heart," Leo cheered loudly and joyfully. He's so sickening sometimes that I forget how and why we even became friends in the first place.

"Come on; let's get out of here quickly. These birds are giving me the creeps." I mumbled to myself.

We'd been walking for only a couple of minutes, or a couple of hours, I lost track of time ages ago, when we came to a chamber that had lights so bright that we had to cover our eyes for a while before we could see properly, after the great darkness of the tunnel. When we could finally see, we choked in shock at the sight.

We were standing on a chessboard that was so large, you could put my whole house on it, and still have plenty of room to spare, and three immense pieces, as tall as the tallest person ever, were moving away so we could play our way across the room to the door.

"What! Are we all going to have to be chess pieces to get across the room?" Eryn and I asked together. Thinking about it now, that was such a dumb question to ask because it's so obvious when you think about it. It really does just get worse, doesn't it?

"As you're the best chess players in the whole school, I think you should be in charge of directing us across the room Jamie," I pointed out to him. He managed to beat the former chess player in just 3 moves, somehow.

"Thanks very much for that compliment. Now Eryn, you are a castle on the kings' side, James, you are a bishop on the queens' side, and I'll be a knight on the kings' side."

And so we played. We lost quite a few pieces, but that didn't matter (I mean, it's not like they were alive or anything). And I still don't understand how he managed to get pass that enemy prawn that had him cornered. But towards the end, only Leo could see how to get us across the room, naturally, all things considering.

"James, Eryn, the only way to get across is to sacrifice myself, so you can checkmate the king then get across the room safely."

"Leo, no don?t do it!" Eryn gabbled.

"Eryn, I must. You have to destroy the ghost that?s been haunting for over 70 years now; otherwise people won't want to come to the library any more because of all the cursed books, and the fact it's haunted. Plus, it'll get you on TV! So if I sacrifice myself, you'll be one step closer to destroying it forever. So I must make my move...now!!"

And that's just what he did. He rambled towards the Queen slowly as he prepared to meet his death. The Queen turned against him, as she advanced, he shrieked like a little baby, naturally. Suddenly, she drew out a sword and stabbed him right in the heart. It might have been funny if it had been a movie, but it wasn't. Then there was silence for the longest time. Then Eryn and I started to cry.

"Please have made the right decision for all our sakes." I sobbed through all my tears. He may have been a fat pig, but he was still the best friend I had ever had, and the fact I'd practically known him from birth made it all the worse.

Eryn was just about to help him when I bellowed "STOP!! We're still playing," I reminded her, through all the tears that were still pouring down my face uncontrollably.

So I made my move, shakily, and managed to checkmate the king, so the king deliberately decided to murder himself on his own sword, and you should have seen all the blood coming out. Just like Leo. But it didn't make it any better that we'd got across the room.

I softly shouted "Hurray, we got past them. What's next?" I'd now managed to stop crying by this time, but was still shaky.

"We'll find out in a minute won't we?" Eryn replied softly. She was still sobbing quietly to herself. I guess I understood why she was so upset. I mean, knowing a friend for five years, being a girlfriend for two, and then having to see him die must have been real traumatic to her. So we had a one minute silence for him out of respect, we then cried again as me and Eryn hugged each other, then we had to move on.

So walking down the darkest, spookiest tunnel that we had been in since we first started this quest, we met up with some very malevolent 'things' which I couldn't possibly tell you about because they would give you nightmares about them for the rest of your life otherwise. So when it came to midnight (Eryn had a watch on) we decided to carry on in the morning.

"I wonder what our mums are thinking about us right at this very minute." I exclaimed to Eryn.

"Mmm" She was evidently still thinking of Leo. I could tell that straight away from her face.

We sat in silence for a while, thinking of what had just happened, then I asked "Eryn, I'm just wondering, but how long have you been down here, not including being with us."

"Well, I must have been down there for about 285 days, at least."

"God that?s a long time. But how did you manage to survive without food or water for that long?"

"Gosh," she exclaimed suddenly standing up and preparing to leave, "We better get going if we want to get to the ghost before tomorrow night."

"But you haven't answered my question, and why by tomorrow."

"What does it matter!" she suddenly snapped. She definitely wasn't acting normal, especially when your boyfriend has just been stabbed to death by a chess piece. Maybe it was just the stress, but I wasn't so sure.

"Sorry I ever asked," I muttered to myself.

But then, as we were getting up, something happened which made me quite uneasy. Eryn floated off the ground for a few seconds. It might've just been part of my very over-active imagination, but because of that, I had a startling thought. Eryn was one of the most dim-witted person in the whole school, only Leo was thicker then she was, hence how she managed to be his girlfriend for such a long time, so how could she be able to get past the riddle plants. After all, she probably would've been killed ages ago. For that matter, how did Leo manage to workout that answer? My superstitions were temporarily answered when she said, "I'll go on ahead to see what else we have to face."

"On your own?"

"Why not?"

"Only asked because we don't know what's going to be around the next corner, so shouldn't really be going on our own."

"I'll just go around the next corner, and then I'll come straight back. I promise." Then for the first time in ages, I saw her smile her beautiful, golden smile. I instantly fell for it, the stupid bastard that I was.

"O.k." I smiled weakly. I must admit, for all her dumbness, she was very beautiful.

So I waited a few minutes, but she didn't come back, so I went along the tunnel for a little while, when, after a few minutes, I came to two paths in a Y shape. In the end I chose the left hand side path (because I am left handed.)

"Now I'll see if my theory is correct. Eryn should be some sort of spirit, and she should be down this path," I muttered to myself softly.

So on I walked down the tunnel, for what really did seem like hours and hours, until finally, I came to the most immense, breath-taking chamber that I'd ever seen, or ever will see for the rest of my life. It seamed to go on for all directions for infinitely. All around the edges, all I saw were laptops, laptops, and more damn laptops. But the thing which was in the centre was what managed to take my breath away. It was a globe. But not just any old globe. It was a holographic globe, fed by all the computers, for on it were all the worlds important population on there, each with their own little dot and name, all of then moving. Then I saw the horror of what created all of this. It was Leo, back from the dead.

"How could you do this to me? I thought you were dead on the chessboard, when the queen brutally bashed your head in, and Leo and I saw your brain coming out."

"Yes, that's what you thought you saw. But I lived and have been healed with the help of the Elixir of Life. In fact, I'm immortal, and that means I'll have plenty of time to take over the whole world with the only Philosophers stone in the whole world." And as he said this, he took out a stone. But it wasn't an ordinary stone, because it was small, yellow, and had a strong, sharp smell to it, like Sulphur.

"Where did you get that from?" I asked him.

"Well, if you really must know, the great wizard of Morgolgalith, who last lived here for millennia, to hideaway from his great enemies, had it, but I managed to destroy him."

"How?" I asked a little too quickly.

"Well, if you actually listen, I fought him in a duel of great power, power you could never imagine. He tried to cast a mighty, ever lasting paralysing spell at me. But I was too quick for him because I managed to get out of the way, and it hit the huge mirror." He pointed to the only space free of computers, to a big mirror. "It bounced off it, and hit him in the face and turned him into Nery by some strange and magical power, which even I don't know about, yet."

"Who's May?" I asked politely. He might be evil, but he is really bloody boring.

"She's the ghost who has haunted the library for the past 70 years. But 14 years ago, my spirit came down into this place again. I 'died' after the duel had finished from Nery strangling me when 'she' realized what had happened to 'her'. But I couldn't truly die because I drank a bit of the Elixir of Life to increase my chances of winning. So I found 'her' again, and by a magical process of my own devising, turned her into Nery."

"So why is she looking so ugly now?"

"Because she is back in the place where the transformation happened."

"But there's also the thing where there's Eryn and there's Nery being here at the same time, isn't there?"

"That's because when she first started to haunt this place, she couldn't decide whether to be good or not,"

I raised my eyebrows at this "So the spirit split. The bad one haunted the library, and the good one haunted this area. The body was just left in the area shortly before coming here. I found the bad spirit when I came back, obviously, and put it back into the body. I don?t know where the good spirit is."

"But what about all these resent hauntings, and the cursing of the books, and such like?"

"'He' cursed the books and the library and Nery when 'he' was still a wizard, and the hauntings are still caused by the good spirit, doing two jobs at once." He sniggered at his own answer.

"But where did you find the stone?" I asked impatiently. I was really getting bored of his story by now, and just wanted him to finish it (whatever that was) quickly.

"'He' left it in the safe over in that corner, near where Eryn is," he smirked again as he pointed into a corner. "Not that you would have a chance to steal it because it's in my pocket."

So as I looked the way he was pointing, and I only just managed to hold my sick in. I really did. For in the far corner was a creature from your worse nightmare, but 100 times more hideous and disgusting then even that.

"What's happened to her?!" I screamed out loud.

"When the spell hit 'him', it blasted into 'his' face, leaving 'her' with a face like that for the rest of 'her' life. But I patched it up so Eryn could look a bit reasonable when she was born."

He giggled again at this for some strange reason. Whilst we were saying this, he'd wandered near a computer to do something with the globe because it grew just that bit bigger then it was before. It was then I had a brilliant idea, I reckoned at the time. But before I could say anything to myself about my plan, he turned around and said softly, but cruelly "In one hour, the radioactive bomb I've planted in the centre of the Earth will blow up, and all the worlds' people will have radioactive cancer. That is, unless the world leaders each give me a billion pounds, in cash, and let me be the single world leader. Forever!" With this, he laughed a totally mental laugh, the full works. With this, I had a chance to review my brilliant plan.

"Why don't I push him into a computer, grab the Stone from him, smash it into a computer, and see him get electrocuted to death, hopefully. But, having said this, I must do it quickly if I'm going to succeed."

Luckily, he now had his back to me, as I was sneaking up on him. I managed to push him into a computer he was leaning on. But then, when it came to getting the Stone from him, however, he had a surprising amount of super human vigour. He must have done a bit of working out during the 70 years because instead of falling into the computer, like a normal person should, he rolled onto it, then leaped off it, and whacked me round the head with super fast reactions, with the Stone he had in his hitting hand. As we wrestled on the floor, I could feel his weight overcoming my own. Suddenly, everything went black.

I awoke to a searing pain across my whole head, and I felt blood trickling down. Then I realised that my hands were tied behind my back and that an oily gag was in my mouth. "How am I going to get out of this predicament," I thought to myself. Then I looked at a gigantic computer monitor, and saw there was only 45 minutes left until everyone had radioactive cancer and all died from the long and painful poison.

"So the pathetic weakling is finally awake," Leo suddenly gloated at me, whilst pulling the gag out of my mouth. I hadn't heard him coming up behind me.

"I thought we were friends!" I spluttered angrily.

"We never were. I was only using you for my evil plans." He pulled out a gun, and pointed it at me.

"Why, you bastard?!" I spluttered angrily at him.

"So I could torture and torment you until the world ended, why else. I could have got it any time, but it's more fun seeing you go through that pain and sadness of you apparently losing me. You know, stuff like that."

Then I spat on him. He, however, just ignored me and walked away to talk to the grotesque Eryn, whist wiping the spit off him. Then, just at that second, I suddenly went cold for no apparent reason. I shivered.

"Don't be afraid," a rather calm, soothing voice suddenly said. I think I would've jumped a mile if I wasn't tied down.

"Who are you?" I whispered nervously.

"I'm the good spirit of this library." Her voice was calm and reassuring in a weird way, all things considering. She then undid my bonds, and then redid them back into an easy-to-undo knot. "I've seen all your pain and suffering with him, and I feel really, really sorry for you. So what I'll do is this." As I listened to the plan she had, I smiled to myself. "After I did this, everything will be o.k." I kept thinking to myself to keep myself motivated.

"Are you ready?"

"Yes."

"Then go quickly and quietly! And remember. Follow the plan exactly to the word, or it won?t work properly."

"Right." So I crept out of my chair, undid the knot, and quietly went over to where Leo was standing, hunched over the countdown computer. When I was behind him, I simply and quickly pushed him head first into the super computer, and ran to the door. Whilst I was doing this, the spirit went over to Eryn, picked her up and threw her into the same computer as Leo. Doing this resulted in it going absolutely haywire. Eryn and Leo screamed:

"You'll never get out now!"

"You'll die before you get out of this place you stupid bastard!"

"Correction, you won't, I will,"and with that, I managed to get out before the automatic shutting 2 inch thick door closed on me. But before this happened, I stopped for a moment and I saw for the last ever time in my life that monstrous face and the monster that I thought had been my friend since I started secondary school, before they were both electrocuted to death. In that one moment, I thought "I now know why they had such a full and loving relationship together." Then the ceiling began to crash around me, and I had to move before I was buried alive. I just ran and ran with all the energy I had, plus more, and I only had one thought: "Get the hell out of here before you die, you git!" I ran through the chess room, where there pieces awaited their fate like noble soldiers from the army. I ran through the bird room, all the birds were in disarray and were flying all around me, scratching and pecking at my face. But then the plants came up. "The stupid, bloody plants that won't let your pass without answering a riddle first" I thought angrily. So I tried to get to the edges of the room and sneak passed them, but they just knocked me back with their brute strength. I screamed as I saw tons of loose rubble falling down onto me. My last words were "Oh God, can someone help me!" Then darkness surrounded me and I knew no more.

When I awoke, I saw only whiteness so bright that I had to squint at first to see anything, then when I managed to get used to it, I saw that everything was bright, shimmering, almost a holy white. Even the strange people with huge, flapping wings and golden halos were that white. I stood up, and then suddenly, someone grabbed me from behind. I fell over from shock.

"You have to come and see God?" This strange 'man' thing didn't look like one at all. He was so beautiful, and yet, angry and menacing at the same time. When he spoke, it was like when someone says something in a kind way when you know you're in big trouble.

"God? Who's God?"

"God is the creator and owner of heaven." It was then I realized I was dead and would never see my family or my friends ever again. He saw my face and said in a gentler voice "You still have a chance to return to earth and return to your family again and continue living your previous life, minus Leo and Eryn who will rot in hell for eternity, but it would mean forfeiting living in paradise forever."

"Can I have a chance to think about it?" He nodded.

"Of course you can."

So I went away into a far corner of this sort of waiting room, not noticing that I was walking on clouds and not falling through them.

Some time later, I came back and talked to the 'man' angel or messengers of God as they prefer to be called.

"Can I see my mum first, and then come back here to live here in perfect, eternal paradise," I begged pleadingly, almost desperately.

"I'll have to speak to Him first."

"Fair enough," I said gratefully, with a tear in my eye.

So he went away, and then I started to cry my heart out, I cried because I knew that apart from this one visit, I would possibly never see my mum again. Some time later, he came back. I was still crying, but I managed to stop when he spoke to me.

"For your actions under the Library against the evil wizard of Leo and formally Morgolgalith, He who controls all allows you to do your bidding."

"Thank you, thank you ever so much," I said, now starting to cry again.

So I was allowed to go back down back to earth for only 24 hours, and I don't want to put it in this report because it's too emotional for me still, even now. Anyway, when I come back, I was told by the 'man' angel to see Him to give him this report.

Thank you for taking the time to read - this was written by jammi567 at -        forums. finalfantasyvii. info


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